organizations across the country to manage what we call
American Job Centers,” he
said. These job centers exist to
help communities put people
to work.

“Within the Workforce
Investment Opportunity Act
there is the whole concept
of the development of sector strategies,” explained
Zuidema.

Zuidema imagined a situation in which a local job
board might say “‘Ok, we
see this emerging renewable
energy sector, we are aware
there are employers, we’re
aware there are jobs and so
we want to work with them.’”
At that point the board might
decide to work with community colleges and training organizations and put
together a network so they
can fnd people looking for
new job opportunities, do
some assessments with them,
determine if they need certain training or credentialing,
get them trained and eventually get them a job in the
renewable energy sector.

There are “frankly, hundreds of millions of dollars”
available across the U.S. for
retraining opportunities,
according to Zuidema.

Leadership at growingrenewable energy companiesshould get in touch with theAmerican Job Centers (fndone at DOLETA.gov, click on “Career Onestop” and type in a zipcode) to make sure the boards are aware that renewable ener-gy is a growing sector. The same is true for local boards, whoshould be on the lookout for industries that already need workersor will need them in the future.

Matching Markets to Job Opportunities

It’s important to keep in mind that the transition to renewables
is slow and will take time. NABCEP’s Lawrence is quick to point
out that it would be foolish to set up solar training programs for
displaced coal workers in regions where there isn’t a strong solar
market.

“Historically, coal-producing areas have had cheaper powerprices and therefore less of a solar market,” he said, explain-ing “you certainly don’t want to go train a bunch of coal work-ers in an area where power prices are still very low, there are nostate incentives and there are no leasing companies doing [solar]installation work there.”On the other hand, we know that today almost all new ener-gy capacity that is being built is wind and solar with a smallerfraction coming from gas. As coal plants retire or it becomes tooexpensive to retroft them with mandated environmental con-trols, new capacity will need to come online and that capacitywill likely be renewables. In May, traditionally coal-focused util-ity American Electric Power (AEP) put out a request for infor-mation (RFI) for up to 900 MW of wind and solar power capac-ity and specifcally called out a desire to receive information onpotential projects in Appalachia.

“If anybody is looking to develop solar training programs
for these displaced workers, they do need to make sure that
there is an industry there and there is a pretty good chance that
that industry is going to be growing in that region,” cautioned
Lawrence.

Perhaps Appalachian communities in partnership with a
renewable energy company could work together to respond to
AEPs RFI and use DOL grant money to train hundreds of workers
in the feld of renewable energy.

Zuidema summed it up nicely.

“It’s really a matter of [renewable energy companies] showing
up and saying ‘here we are, we understand you are in the business of fnding people and making sure they have some training,
we’re in the business of hiring, let’s get together.’” à